Associate Professor
School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, College of Health Professions and Sciences, University of Central Florida, USA

Aphasia and related acquired language disorders: Characteristics and management in Chinese speakers

Aphasia is broadly defined as the disturbance of language functions involving both reception and expression, commonly caused by a stroke or related neurogenic conditions. Symptoms of aphasia may manifest as difficulties in listening, reading, speaking, and/or writing. Research reports of Chinese-speaking people with aphasia (PWA) can be traced back to the 1930s, but this body of work has not received the attention it deserves until about two decades ago, in which the work of a number of leading Chinese aphasiologists covering different areas of language deficits were featured and the potential of language impairment for informing linguistic and psycholinguistic issues was highlighted. In this talk, recent studies of Chinese-speaking PWA, including speakers of Mandarin and Cantonese, in oral comprehension and production will be reviewed. In addition to language performance at the word and sentence levels, reports of aphasic discourse production and co-verbal gestures that have only appeared very recently will be described. The Cantonese AphasiaBank (www.speech.hku.hk/caphbank/search/), a large scale publically-accessible multimodal annotated database of aphasic and control spoken discourse in Chinese, will also be introduced with highlights of its clinical implications on assessing and managing aphasia.

Associate Professor
Department of Education Information Technology, East China Normal University

Speech Title: Challenges of Quantitative Modeling in Educational Research

In the 21st century, quantitative modeling studies have dominated in the arena of social sciences, including the field of education. However, despite the fact that such studies have existed for a decade, published research articles have reported that social scientists and researchers frequently struggle to conduct quantitative modeling studies due to an incomplete understanding of quantitative modeling and a lack of skills. The main challenge is assumed to be researchers’ lack of knowledge of how to apply quantitative modeling analytical methods such as structural equation modeling and the Rasch model appropriately in educational research. Thus, this presentation will discuss how such models could be applied systematically in performing educational research and in analyzing, interpreting and reporting the findings of empirical studies. This presentation will also provide evidence that combining structural equation modeling and the Rasch model would create a great opportunity to conduct meaningful measurements which could potentially be generalized and used in other situations. This presentation could also serve as a guideline for social scientists and educational researchers to follow in order to overcome the challenges of quantitative modeling studies and improve the quality of practice measurements in education.

Professor
School of Journalism, New Media at Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, Shaanxi, P. R.China.

Speech Title: Factors Influencing Obituary Reporting Behavior During Sudden Disasters: An Empirical Study of Chinese Obituaries During the COVID-19 Epidemic

This study examines the ethical norms surrounding obituaries and explores the media’s obituary reporting behavior and the factors that influence this behavior in relation to sudden disasters. We use the FEMS framework to describe obituary reporting behavior during an sudden disaster. Based on Chinese obituaries during the COVID-19 epidemic, we measure the effects of three factors: gender of the dead, social status of the dead, and media type. The results show that all three factors have some influence on obituary reporting behavior. The Chinese media have made great progress in obituary reporting behavior in sudden disasters. They basically describe death euphemistically and implicitly, ensuring the integrity and accuracy of information, giving respect and reputation to the dead, deeply excavating and vividly reproducing the images and stories of the dead, and attaching importance to the social functions, yet there is still much room for improvement.

Professor
Department of Economics, Management, University of Naples Federico II.